CATTLE DYING. 227 



up, and I halted them on the river's bank, opposite to 

 the rhinoceros. 



On the 21st much rain fell throughout the day, ren- 

 dering the country unfit for trekking, A birth and a 

 death occurred among my cattle. In the afternoon a 

 loud rushing noise was heard coming on like a hurri- 

 cane : this was a large troop of pallah pursued by a 

 pack of about twenty wild dogs. They passed our 

 camp in fine style within a hundred yards of us, and 

 in two minutes the wild dogs had caught two of the 

 pallahs, which my Bechuanas ran up and secured. A 

 pallah, in passing my camp, cleared a distance of fifty 

 feet in two successive bounds, and this on unfavorable 

 ground, it being very soft and slippery. 



I left the sable antelopes' mountain mainly in con- 

 sequence of a general falling off among my cattle. I 

 did not then know to what cause to attribute this sad, 

 and, to me, all-important change in their condition, 

 which only a few weeks before had been a source of 

 admiration to us. Alas ! it was now too evident that 

 nearly all of them were dying, having been bitten by 

 the fly " tsetse" at the mountain. The rains of the 

 last three days had made this melancholy truth more 

 strongly manifest; the cattle presented a most woeful 

 appearance. Listless and powerless, they cared not to 

 feed, and, though the grass covered the country with 

 the richest and most luxuriant pasturage, their sides 

 remained hollow, and their whole bodies became daily 

 more emaciated ; the eyes also of many of them were 

 closed and swollen. The next morning being fair, I "in- 

 spanned, although the country was very unfit for trek- 

 king, my heavily-laden wagons sinking deep in the soft, 

 rich soil which lies along the banks of the Limpopo. 

 My poor oxen, as I expected, became knocked up on tho 



